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Court No. 24
Writ Petition No. 4124 (SS) of 1994
Chitrakott Singh substituted by LRS Sumitra Devi and
Six others ... Petitioners
Versus
State of U.P. and another ... Opposite parties
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Hon'ble Rajiv Sharma, J.
Heard Counsel for the petitioner and the Standing Counsel on
behalf of the respondents.
Counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner in the
instant writ petition has sought quashing of the charge sheet inter-
alia on the ground that the petitioner at the relevant time was
working as Seasonal Naib Tehsildar [Collection] Gorakhpur and as
such the charge-sheet should have been approved by the Appointing
Authority but without any approval from the appointing authority,the
Sub Divisional Magistrate, Sadar issued the charge sheet. Therefore,
the entire disciplinary proceedings are non est and deserves to be
quashed. Apart from above, various other arguments were advanced
to show that the disciplinary proceedings were per se bad as no
date, time and place of enquiry was fixed, the petitioner was not
given adequate opportunity to defend himself.
On behalf of the respondents, Standing Counsel has stated
that before appointment of the deceased petitioner,he worked as
Collection Amin. As the appointing authority of the post of the
Collection Amin was the District Magistrate and the charges for
which disciplinary proceeding was initiated, were related for the
period when the deceased petitioner was Collection Amin and as
such the charge sheet dated 17.9.1993 was issued. Thereafter, due
procedure was followed and even the Board of Revenue after
scrutinizing the material on record, came to the conclusion that the
charges levelled against the deceased petitioner are proved.
Consequently, punishment order was passed.
The State Government has framed The Subordinate Revenue
Executive Service ( Naib-Tehsildars ) Rules, 1944 for regulating the
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appointment to posts in the Subordinate Revenue Executive Service
( Naib-Tehsildars) and the conditions of services of persons so
appointed. Rule 2 deals with the Status of the service and says that
the Subordinate Revenue Executive Service ( Naib Tehsidlars) is a
subordinate service and shall be under the administrative control of
the Board. Rule 22 deals with the appointment and provides that the
Board shall, on the occurrence of substantive vacancies in the
service make appointments thereto, in order of seniority of
candidates, whose names are entered in the list maintained under
rule 20.
From the perusal of the records it clearly comes out that the
charge sheet and the supplementary charge sheet were issued by
the Collector. The Inquiry Officer was also appointed by the
Collector. It is not disputed by the parties that the deceased-
petitioner was working on the promotional post of Naib Tehsildar
when the charge sheet was issued. Infact the deceased-petitioner
was promoted to the post of Naib Tehsildar in the month of January,
1983. Undoubtedly, the Appointing Authority of the deceased-
petitioner was the Board of Revenue. Therefore, the Collector was
neither competent nor empowered to issue charge sheet to the
deceased-petitioner. Further, he was also not competent to initiate
the enquiry against the deceased-petitioner. Since I am satisfied that
the charge sheet was issued by the incompetent authority the
consequential disciplinary proceedings and punishment order are per
se bad and are not sustainable, I refrain myself from entering into
other arguments advanced by the parties Counsel.
In view of the above, the writ petition is allowed. The charge-
sheets contained in Annexures 1 and 2 and the consequential show
cause notice and punishment order are hereby quashed. Since the
petitioner has already expired, the legal heirs, who were substituted
in the writ petition in place of original petitioner shall be paid the
post retiral benefits like provident fund, Group Insurance, monthly
pension, gratuity and other admissible dues within a period of four
months.
5.1.10
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HM/-
